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Particularized Social Groups and Categorical Imperatives in Refugee American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law Volume 23 Issue 4 Article 2 2015 Particularized Social Groups and Categorical Imperatives in Refugee Law: State Failures to Recognize Gender and the Legal Reception of Gender Persecution Claims in Canada, The United Kingdom, and the United States Melanie Randall The University of Western Ontario, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/jgspl Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, Immigration Law Commons, International Humanitarian Law Commons, International Law Commons, and the Law and Gender Commons Recommended Citation Randall, Melanie (2015) "Particularized Social Groups and Categorical Imperatives in Refugee Law: State Failures to Recognize Gender and the Legal Reception of Gender Persecution Claims in Canada, The United Kingdom, and the United States," American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law: Vol. 23 : Iss. 4 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/jgspl/vol23/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington College of Law Journals & Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Randall: Particularized Social Groups and Categorical Imperatives in Refug PARTICULARIZED SOCIAL GROUPS AND CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVES IN REFUGEE LAW: STATE FAILURES TO RECOGNIZE GENDER AND THE LEGAL RECEPTION OF GENDER PERSECUTION CLAIMS IN CANADA, THE UNITED KINGDOM, AND THE UNITED STATES MELANIE RANDALL, PH.D., LL.B. (J.D.)* Introduction: Identifying Women as a "Particular Social Group" in the Refugee Jurisprudence of Canada, the United States and the U nited K ingdom ............................................................................. 530 Defining "Refugee" and "Persecution" in Law ......................................... 534 Trends in the Reception of Gender Persecution Refugee Claims in C an ada ............................................................................................536 The Canadian Guidelines and the Recognition of Gender P ersecution .............................................................................. 537 Ward v. Canada and the Nascent Recognition of Gender as the "Particular Social Group" ....................................................... 539 Some Key Cases and Their Significance ........................................ 541 Particularizing Social Groups: Modifying Gender ........................ 543 Trends in Gender Persecution Claims in the United Kingdom .................. 546 Some Key United Kingdom Cases and Their Significance ............ 547 Particularizing Social Groups: Modifying Gender in the United * Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. Thanks to Vasanthi Venkatesh, human rights lawyer and doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Law, Berkeley, for conversations and insight into these issues, as well as for allowing me to benefit from her excellent research in this area. This article builds on and extends the analysis I developed in the article, Refugee Law and State Accountability for Violence Against Women: A Comparative Analysis of Legal Approaches to Recognizing Asylum Claims Based on Gender Persecution, 25 HARV. WOMEN'S L.J., 281 (2002). The title references Audrey Macklin's foundational article, Refugee Women and the Imperative of Categories, 17 HUM. RTs. Q. 213, 271-72 (1995). Published by Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law, 2015 1 American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law, Vol. 23, Iss. 4 [2015], Art. 2 530 JOURNAL OF GENDER, SOCIAL POLICY & THE LAW [Vol. 23:4 K ingdom Case Law .................................................................550 Trends in Gender Persecution Refugee Claims in the United States .........552 Some Key Cases and their Significance .........................................555 Particularizing Social Groups: Modifying Gender ........................559 Holding Back the Floodgates: Alarmist Arguments about Mass Refugee Claims If Gender Is Recognized as a Ground of P ersecution ......................................................................................562 Overcoming Gender Neutrality: WHY Gender MUST BE Legally recognized as its Own Ground of Persecution ................................566 Conclusion: Gender, Justice and Refugee Law ........................................569 INTRODUCTION: IDENTIFYING WOMEN AS A "PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUP" IN THE REFUGEE JURISPRUDENCE OF CANADA, THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNITED KINGDOM For women in refugee law, the issue has always been fitting into the correct category and thus, bending the category to fit women. I The difficulties establishing effective legal remedies for gendered harms and gender inequalities are perhaps nowhere more starkly evident than in refugee law, where women's appeals for safe refuge from gender persecution continue to face formidable legal obstacles. In spite of significant jurisprudential advances in recent years, these obstacles to women's claims for asylum persist at a time when the world's refugee crisis is exploding.2 Indeed, the United Nations' Refugee Agency has recently reported that "the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide has, for the first time in the post- World War II era, exceeded 50 million people.",3 Roughly half of the world's refugees are women and girls who face particular vulnerabilities and violations as a result of their gender.4 1. Shauna Labman & Catherine Dauvergne, Evaluating Canada'sApproach to Gender-Related Persecution: Revisiting and Re-Embracing 'Refugee Women and the Imperative of Categories', in GENDER IN REFUGEE LAW: FROM THE MARGINS TO THE CENTRE 265 (Efrat Arbel et al. eds., 2014). 2. World Refugee Day: Global Forced Displacement Tops 50 Million For First Time In Post-World War II Era, UNHCR (June 20, 2014), http://www.unhcr.org/53a155bc6.html. 3. Id. 4. Valerie Oosterveld, Women and Girls Fleeing Conflict: Gender and the Interpretationand Application of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (Sep. 2012), available at http://www.unhcr.org/504dd7649.pdf (explaining women and girls who are refugees from conflict situations "may be subjected to different violations because they https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/jgspl/vol23/iss4/2 2 Randall: Particularized Social Groups and Categorical Imperatives in Refug 2015] PARTICULARIZED SOCIAL GROUPS Women become refugees and request asylum for a variety of reasons, sometimes having little to do with their gender. In this analysis, however, I focus on women's claims for refuge made on the basis that they have suffered gender-specific forms of persecution and gendermotivated rights violations. Gender persecution is expressed in multiple ways - these include forms of gendered violence, such as physical or sexual violence in intimate relationships, rape and sexual assault in other relational contexts, forced marriage, sexual slavery, trafficking for sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation (FGM), forced veiling, honour killings and other gender specific cultural or religious practices. All of these forms of gender persecution simultaneously express and reinforce women's inferior status and men's dominance in the particular societies in which they occur, and all can be understood in light of the pervasive and global problem of gender inequality.5 The foundational statutory definition of a refugee is articulated in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention which recognizes persecution "for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group, or political opinion .... , But persecution based on the "reason" of gender is missing from the list.7 It is the very definition of the category of refugee in the UN Convention, therefore, which does not identify gender as one of the five protected grounds. This absence continues in the relevant domestic legislation of Canada, are women and girls, or they may be subjected to the same type of violations as men and boys, but experience or perceive these harms in a different manner. One obvious example is sexual violence committed during war: "[slexual violence, and the long shadow of terror and trauma it casts, disproportionately affects women and girls." This different female experience stems from pervasive global gender inequality: around the world, women and girls tend to be poorer and receive less education, and are often less mobile as a result of traditional family and caregiving responsibilities, all of which negatively compound their experiences during conflict. While women and girls may have common experiences based on their gender, sometimes girls suffer additional targeted harm as a result of their young age. For example, girls forcibly recruited to serve as fighters may serve in combat and as scouts (like boys), but may also be subjected to sexual slavery and conjugal slavery (unlike boys)"); see Women, UNHCR, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646cld9.html (last visited May 23, 2015). 5. See Gender Inequality Index, UNITED NATIONS' HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME, http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/gender-inequality-index-gii (last visited May 23, 2015) (providing data
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